Westward with the Prince of Wales Part 16

Its decisions are so sure that the grading of the wheat is only disputed about forty times in the year. This is astonis.h.i.+ng when one realizes the enormous number of samples judged.

In the same way, and in spite of the apparent confusion about the pit where they take place, the records of the transactions are so exact that only about once in five thousand is such a record queried.

The Prince was immensely interested in all the practical details of working which make this handling of grain a living and dramatic thing, showing, as usual, that active curiosity for workaday facts that is essential to the make-up of the moderns.

His directness and accessibility made friends for him with these hard-headed business men as readily as it had made friends with soldiers and with the ma.s.s of people. Winnipeg had already exerted its Western faculty for affectionate epithets. He had already been dubbed a "Fine Kiddo," and it was commonplace to hear people say of him, "He's a regular feller, he'll do." They said these things again in the Exchange, declaring emphatically he was "sure, a manly-looking chap."

As he left the Exchange the members switched the chaos of the pit into shouts of a more hearty and powerful volume, and to listen to a crowd of such fully-seasoned lungs doing their utmost in the confined s.p.a.ce of a building is an awe-inspiring and terrific experience.

The friendliness here was but a "cla.s.sified sample"--if the Winnipeg Exchange will permit that expression--of the friendliness in bulk he found all over Canada, and which he found in the great West, upon which he was now entering.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST

SASKATOON AND EDMONTON

I

From Winnipeg, on the night of September 10th, we pushed steadily northwest, and on the morning of Thursday, the 11th, we were in the open prairie, a new land that is being opened up by the settler.

We were travelling too late to see the land under wheat--one of the finest sights in the world, we were told; but all the grain was not in, and we saw thres.h.i.+ng operations in progress and big areas covered with the strangely small stocks, the result of the Canadian system of cutting the standing stalk rather high up. In the early night, by Portage la Prairie, we had seen big fires burning in the distance.

They were not, as we at first thought, prairie fires, but the homesteader getting rid of the great mounds of stalk left by the thres.h.i.+ng, the usual method.

In the early morning mist we came upon the big, flat expanse of Horn Lake, near Wynyard, over which flew lines of militaristic duck in wedge formation. The prairies lay about us in a great expanse, dun-brown and rolling. It is a monotonous landscape, and there were few if any trees until we got farther north and west.

The little prairie towns appear on the horizon a great distance away, thanks to the big grain elevators alongside the track. The grain elevators in these plains are what churches are in Europe; they have, indeed, the look of being basilicas of a new, materialistic dispensation.

The little towns under the elevators seem palpably to be struggling with the inert force of the prairie about them. Prairie seems to be flowing into them on every side, and only by a brave effort do houses and streets raise themselves above the encroaching sea of gra.s.s. Yet all the towns have a modern air, too. All have excellent electric light services in houses and streets, and all have "movie" theatres.

At the stations crowds were gathered. At Wynyard all the young of the district appeared to have collected before going to school. Catching the word that the Prince "lived" in the last car, they swarmed round it. Some one told them the Prince was still in bed, and with the utmost cheerfulness they began to chant: "Sleepy head! Sleepy head!"

At Lanigan, the next station, a crowd of the same cheery temper also raised a clamour for the Prince. As a rule he never disappointed them, and would leave whatever he was doing to go on to the observation platform at the first hint of cheers. But at Lanigan there were difficulties. The crowd cheered. Some one looked out of the car, made a gesture of negation, and went back. The crowd cheered a good deal more. There was a pause; more cheering. Then a discreet member of the Staff came out and said the Prince was awfully sorry, but--but, well, he was in his bath!

"That's all the better," called a cheerful girl from the heart of the crowd. "_We_ don't mind."

The member of the Staff vanished in a new gust of cheering, probably to hide his blushes. Need I say the Prince did _not_ appear?

At Colonsay there was a stop of five minutes only, but the people of the town made the most of it. They had a pretty Britannia to the fore, and all the school-children grouped about her and singing when the train steamed in. And when it stopped, a delightful and tiny miss came forward and gave the Prince a bunch of sweet peas.

These incidents were a few only of a characteristic day's run. Every day the same sort of thing happened, so that though the Prince had a more strenuous time in the bigger cities, his "free times" were actually made up of series of smaller functions in the smaller ones.

II

Saskatoon, the distributing city for the middle of Saskatchewan, was to give the Prince a memorable day. It was here that he obtained his first insight into the life and excitements of the cowboy. Saskatoon, in addition to the usual reception functions, showed him a "Stampede,"

which is a cowboy sports meeting.

The Prince arrived in the town at noon, and drove through the streets to the Park and University grounds for the reception ceremonies. It is a keen, bright place, seeming, indeed, of sparkling newness in the wonderful clarified sunlight of the prairie.

It is new. Saskatoon is only now beginning its own history. It is still sorting itself out from the plain which its elevators, business blocks and delightful residential districts are yet occupied in thrusting back. It is a characteristic town on the uplift. It snubs and encroaches upon the illimitable fields with its fine American architecture, and its stone university buildings. It has new suburbs full of houses of symmetrical Western comeliness in a tract wearing the air of Buffalo Bill.

It grows so fast that you can almost see it doing it. It has grown so fast that it has outstripped the guide-book makers. They talk of it in two lines as a village of a few hundred inhabitants, but put not your trust in guide-books when coming to Canada, for the village you come out to see turns out, like Saskatoon, to be a bustling city full of "pep," as they say, and possessing 20,000 inhabitants.

The guide-book makers are not to blame. Somewhere about 1903 there were no more than 150 people within its boundaries. Now, from the look of it, it could provide ten motor-cars for each of these oldest inhabitants, and have about 500 over for new-comers--in fact, that is about the figure; there are 2,000 cars on the Saskatoon registers.

Saskatoon was full of cars neatly lined up along the Prince's route during every period of his stay.

The great function of the visit was the "Stampede." This sports meeting took place on a big racing ground before a grand-stand that held many thousand more people than Saskatoon boasted. The many cars that brought them in from all over the country were parked in huge wedges in and about the ground.

Pa.s.sing off the wild dirt roads, the Prince headed a procession of cars round the course before entering a special pavilion erected facing the grandstand. His coming was the signal for the Stampede to commence.

It was a new thrill to Britishers, an affair of excitement, and a real breath of Western life. They told us that the cattle kings are moving away from this area to the more s.p.a.cious and lonely lands of the North; but the exhibition the Prince witnessed showed that the daring and skilful spirit of the cowboys has not moved on yet.

We were also told that this Stampede was something in the nature of a circus that toured the country, and that men and animals played their parts mechanically as oft-tried turns in a show. But even if that was so, the thing was unique to British eyes, and the exhibition of all the tricks of the cattleman's calling was for those who looked on a new sensation.

Cattlemen rode before the Prince on bucking horses that, loosed from wooden cages, came along the track like things compact of India-rubber and violence, as they strove to throw the leechlike men in furry, riding chaps, loose s.h.i.+rts, sweat-rags and high felt hats, who rode them.

Some of the men rode what seemed a more difficult proposition--an angry bull, that bunched itself up and down and lowed vindictively, as it tried to buck its rider off.

From the end of the race-track a steer was loosed, and a cowboy on a small lithe broncho rode after it at top speed. Round the head of this man the lariat whirled like a live snake. In a flash the noose was tight about the steer's horns, the brilliant little horse had overtaken the beast, and in an action when man and horse seemed to combine as one, the tightened rope was swung against the steer's legs. It was thrown heavily. Like lightning the cowboy was off the horse, was on top of the half-stunned steer, and had its legs hobbled in a rope.

One man of the many who competed in this trial of skill performed the whole operation in twenty-eight seconds from the time the steer was loosed to the time its legs were secured.

A more daring feat is "bull-d.o.g.g.i.ng."

The steer is loosed as before, and the cattleman rides after it, but instead of la.s.soing it, he leaps straight out of his saddle and plunges on to the horns of the beast. Gripping these long and cruel-looking weapons, he twists the bull's neck until the animal comes down, and there, with his body in the hollow of the neck and shoulder, he holds it until his companions run up and release him.

There is a real thrill of danger in this.

One man, a cowboy millionaire, caught his steer well, but in the crash in which the animal came down it rolled right over him. For a moment man and beast were lost in a confusion of tossing legs and dust. Then the man, with s.h.i.+rt torn to ribbons and his back sc.r.a.ped in an ugly manner, rose up gamely and limped away. The only thing about him that had escaped universal dusting was his white double-linen collar, the strangest article of clothing any "bull-dogger" might wear.

The Prince called this plucky fellow, as well as others of the outfit, into the pavilion, and talked with them some time on the risk and adventures of their business, as well as congratulating them on their skill.

Two comely cowgirls, in fringed leather dresses, high boots, bright blouses and broad sombreros, also caught his eye. He spoke to a "movie" man, who had already added to the gaiety of nations by leaping round in a circle (heavy camera and all) while a big, bucking broncho had leaped round after him, telling him that the girls formed a fit subject for the lens.

"I'm waiting until I can get you with them, sir," said the "movie" man.

"Oh, you'll get me all right," the Prince laughed. "There's no chance of my escaping you."

The "movie" man got Prince and cowgirls presently, when the Prince had invited them into the pavilion to chat for a few minutes. They were fine, free and independent girls, who enjoyed the naturalness and easiness of the interview.

During the meeting all the arts of the cowboys were exhibited. The lariat expert la.s.soed men and horses in bunches of five as easily as he la.s.soed one, and danced in and turned somersaults through his ever-whirling loop. There were some fine exhibitions of horse-riding, and there was some Amazonian racing by girls in jockey garb.

The human interlude was also there. A daring woman photographer in the grand-stand held up a cowboy. Disregarding her long skirts, she climbed the fence of the course and calmly mounted behind the horseman.

Riding thus, she pa.s.sed across the front of the cheering grand-stand and came to the steps of the Prince's pavilion. Unconcerned by the joy of the great crowd, she asked permission to take a snapshot, and received it, going her way unruffled and entirely Canadian.

The very thrilling afternoon was closed by the Prince himself. Walking over to the crowd of cattlemen, he stood talking with them and examining their horses. Presently, on the invitation of the leader, he mounted a broncho, and, leading the bunch of cowboys and cowgirls, swept down the track and past the stand. The people, delighted at this unexpected act, vented themselves in the usual way--that is, with extraordinary enthusiasm.